On the southern leg of the P.T. Barnum’s tour, Anna Haining Swan would meet Martin Van Buren Bates. Soon after, they would enter the record books. Anna Haining Swan was born in 1846, in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. Her parents were both of average height and weight, so imagine their surprise when their daughter was born weighing 16 pounds. Before she was four years old, she would reach four and a half feet....
These stunning Jupiter pictures, captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, show the hidden beauty that lurks within the planet’s chaotic storms. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: NASA’s $1 Billion Probe Just Sent Back Photos of Jupiter Like You’ve Never Seen It Before Stunning New Photos Give Closest-Ever Look At Jupiter’s Mysterious Red Spot 23 Of The Year’s Best Nature Photographs That Will Make You Marvel At The Beauty Of Our Planet...
This discovery is the first of its kind, with a perfectly preserved 3-month horse of a now-extinct species in the Siberian permafrost. Michil Yakoklev/North-Eastern Federal UniversityFull body shot of ancient horse found in Siberia. The remains of a now-extinct species of horse have been unearthed in the Siberian Permafrost. Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, told the Siberian Times that this discovery is unlike any other....
The U.K. government’s new Review on Antimicrobial Resistance contends that when it comes to the rising number of infections resistant to antibiotics, the world is perched on the edge of catastrophe. Over the course of the 20th century, antibiotics revolutionized medicine, saved millions upon millions of lives, and eradicated diseases that had plagued humanity for centuries. But at the same time, their use — and more pointedly, their over-use — has created a new generation of bacteria resistant to these antibiotics....
When no one in the United States would train her, Bessie Coleman enrolled in a prestigious flight school in France — and became a fearless stunt pilot known across the world. In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first Black woman in America to be awarded a pilot’s license. Coleman’s journey to the cockpit, however, was no breeze. Based on her gender and color, Coleman was denied admission to all the aviation schools she applied to in the United States....
Scientists hope to use the fungi’s powers to help people who are routinely exposed to radiation like cancer patients and astronauts. Getty ImagesSince the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in 1986, researchers have found that certain species of fungi are thriving off of the radiation in these now-abandoned areas. Whether it’s an asteroid or an ice age, planet Earth and its lifeforms always seem to find a way to carry on in the face of destruction and change....
“This kind of system has never been discovered anywhere else.” Wikimedia CommonsThe Great Pyramids at Giza Archeologists have discovered a 4,500-year-old ramp in Egypt that might have been used to build the Great Pyramid and others. Experts have long wondered and hypothesized how the Ancient Egyptians managed to build the Pyramids, and this latest discovery gives them a potential answer as to how the construction of one of the seven wonders of the world was made possible....
Giuseppe “Pino” Greco killed up to 300 victims on behalf of the powerful Corleonesi clan during the Sicilian Mafia war of the late 1970s. Though he died in 1985, the name “Giuseppe Greco” strikes fear into the hearts of Sicilians to this very day. As one of the most brutal enforcers of the Sicilian Mafia, Greco went above and beyond the proverbial call of duty. More than just a hitman, Greco is considered one of the most prolific serial killers in Sicilian history — indeed, in the world....
Though the Groom of the Stool transported the king’s portable toilet and recorded his bowel movements, the royal toilet attendant was nonetheless a coveted position. Wikimedia CommonsA close stool not unlike the one the Groom of the Stool would have transported for a Tudor king. The Groom of the Stool was the original shit job. Yet, it was one that all noblemen in the realm would’ve died — or killed — to have....
In the 1960s, Ann Atwater could feel the breeze through the cracks in her house’s walls. Then a housing advocate recommended she attend a community organizing training — and the rest is history. Jim Thornton/The Herald Sun Collections/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill LibrariesAnn Atwater and C.P. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolina’s charrette S.O.S., “Save Our Schools.” She was a poor black woman raising children alone in the South in the mid-20th century....
Most dog owners would do just about anything for their canine companions. In Nepal, Hindu populations take that affection to another level. Coinciding with the traditional Hindu festival of Diwali, the people of Nepal reserve the second day of the annual five-day Tihar Festival to honor man’s best friend. On this day — called Kukur Tihar, or “worship of the dogs” — participants pay tribute to the divine attachment between humans and their faithful, four-legged companions....
Just how accurately did Netflix’s Narcos show the downfall of Pablo Escobar at the hands of DEA Agent Javier Peña? Getty ImagesActor Pedro Pascal (left), who portrays Javier Peña (right) in the Netflix hit Narcos. Netflix’s hit series Narcos started out by following the story of infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. For years in the 1980s, Escobar made untold billions off trafficking cocaine into the United States from his native Colombia....
The narrator of Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches post-Civil War American classic, Ragged Dick (1868), offered perhaps the best, most sympathetic description of a contemporary epidemic almost unthinkable in the 21st century: childhood addiction to cigarettes. Share Flipboard Email “Men are frequently injured by smoking, and boys always,” Alger wrote, specifically referring to the “newsboys and boot-blacks” particularly susceptible to the habit. “Exposed to the cold and wet they find that it warms them up, and the self-indulgence grows upon them....
Every day, hardliners in Iran and the United States try to paint a picture of an Iran wholly opposed to Western modernity. But behind the political posturing are the actual people who live and work in Iran, and they don’t look as different as these leaders might like us to imagine. Just as there is no single understanding of what an American looks like, there is no essential Iranian, either. Like many countries, oppression and violence are a reality of everyday life, but overall Iran is a country striving to find a middle ground between staunch traditionalism and modern sensibilities, most notably in the area of Tehran, Iran’s cultural and industrial capital....
Thanks to evolving forensic science, researchers now know what this legendary mummy’s face looks like. 3,500 years ago, Nebiri was an Egyptian dignitary under the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, Thutmoses III. Now, Nebiri is a fairly well-preserved head, famous mostly for being the oldest ever documented case of chronic heart failure. And thanks to a remarkable reconstruction project by a team of international researchers, we finally get to see a face to match that fairly depressing legacy:...
The dinosaur’s skull case was found in pristine condition after 80 million years — and gave scientists an idea of its extraordinary hunting capabilities. Jorge Blanco/Journal of Vertebrate PaleontologyThe newfound species is 80 million years old and lived at the same time as the T. rex. Paleontologists in Argentina have discovered a new dinosaur species that’s similar to Tyrannosaurus rex — but arguably much scarier. With enormous claws and a skull covered in bumps, horns, and deep-seated crests, the terrifying creature has been dubbed Llukalkan aliocranianus, or “the one who causes fear....
“The obese and overweight tourists, combined with the lack of shade and water as well as the sheer heat and 568 cobbled steps, is what is causing such a problem.” Caters News Agency What started out as a way for tourists to sightsee is turning into a nightmare for the donkeys involved. Thousands of tourists flock to the Greek island of Santorini every day to take in the beautiful sites by riding donkeys up and down the cobbled steps of the island’s hilly terrain....
See the haunting photos and hear the daring tale of the miraculous prisoner escape through the newly uncovered tunnel at Ponar, Lithuania. Wikimedia CommonsA Nazi guard looks down upon prisoners gathered in the Ponar extermination pit near Vilnius, Lithuania in July 1941. After 70 years, researchers near Vilnius, Lithuania have finally discovered a long fabled tunnel that Jewish prisoners used to escape the Nazis’ Ponar extermination site during the Holocaust....
“Skokholm is producing some amazing prehistoric finds. It seems we may have an early Bronze Age burial mound built over a middle Stone Age hunter-gatherer site.” Crown Cherish ProjectSkokholm Island typically allows a select number of visitors to spend the night, but COVID-19 lockdowns have reduced its population to only two wardens — and a bunch of rabbits. In a first-of-its-kind discovery this month, a herd of rabbits accidentally found a cache of 9,000-year-old Stone and Bronze Age artifacts buried on the remote Welsh island of Skokholm....
Lawrence Dickson was declared M.I.A. in 1944 after his plane went down due to engine troubles somewhere over the Austria-Italy border. Department of DefenseCapt. Lawrence E. Dickson After nearly 74 years of searching, Tuskegee Airmen Capt. Lawrence E. Dickson has finally been found. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (D.P.A.A.), an agency which investigates and recovers fallen military personnel, announced on July 27 that Dickson’s remains had been found and identified. A member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators in the United States military, Dickson had been declared missing-in-action since his plane went down over the border of Austria and Italy on Dec....
